Alpha Dog Chronicles
by Flamekaat
Summary: Jessica once lived as a part of the great hive of the East despite being an ordinary human with only one unusual thing, she possesses almost no mental barriers and sees no reason for them. The presence in her new home area of a hive changes everything.
1. Chapter 1

_**Alpha Dog: Chapter 1-Altered Perceptions**_

There was a hive nearby. With earth nearly abandoned only a few thousand humans inhabited each continent where they had once been numbered in the billions. For those who remained, like she did there was no reason to follow those billions out into space. Why should they? These were the people who favored an existence very close to nature and cared for the wounded body of the world that still supported them like any really good mother. So when they found a hive of the Alien beings called Xenomorphs near their settlement they did not call for help and they did not band together for the purpose of hunting and extermination the 'menace.'

Instead the six people who lived in this region of the country gathered together their trade goods and anything that aliens who did not wear clothes or use tools might need, mostly food, and the approached the hive. She was in the lead. She held no weapons. Just a sack of fruit and a haunch of deer meat.

"Jessica are you sure this is a wise idea?"

"Yes William it is a wise idea. After all they could have hundreds of them by now and we are six people. Better to make friends then be a main course."

_Jessica...Jessica is it?_

_Yes that's me? Who asks?_

The perception she received was not a word or even a set of words but a set of feelings and perceptions of the individual being. It translated loosely as being an Alpha male. He was royal guard to the hive's Queen. He was fierce but decent and also careful of those who were not as strong as he was. Although She knew better she was sure her companions thought that weak hive members would have been killed and tossed if not killed and eaten for food. This thought gained her a mental chuckle and a attitude that translated as _of course not, but that humans would think this does not surprise me any._

_Sorry._

The Alpha male finally came out of the tree line and with him were three Beta males and one genderless Xeno. It was weaker then the others, so weak that it had not taken on any gender characteristics at all. Yet it was fun loving and viewed with affection by all in the hive.

_You would rather 'trade' peacefully,then fight and end up being food or hosts for our young. That is wisdom. This path of thoughts will lead you to a long life. That you convinced the others proves your worth as leader and chief of your small band. We will trade with you though at present we have little other then preserved hides._

The trade went smoothly. Jessica knew it would. Once the Queen had decided and the Alpha male knew her orders, they would be enforced to the letter by him and his subordinates. She had negotiated carefully despite a subtle nerve level instinct of danger. This would fade if the 'dangerous' beings proved themselves to not be so over several meetings.

Carrying her share of the hides back towards her small residence in the hillside, Jessica sighed. It weighed in at about six times the fruit's weight. These hides had to come from buffalo or feral cattle of some kind. Deer hide was much thinner then what they had tanned and traded with. She was happy with it though. Her feet ached with the need for new footwear, and as it was nearly halfway to winter, an oiled set of boots was what the doctor ordered.

She had just finished making a pair and left them to dry so the oils would absorb into the leather and water proof it, when knock came at the door. It was Thomas MacGillecuttie.

"Our new trading partners may be in trouble. Yautja hunters just arrived."

"I'll go warn them. You stall for time any way that you can think of. Invite them to dinner if you have to. I'll give you my next deer kill or at least enough to replace what you use from your stash. As for me I'm gone now. Be back later."

Jessica ran fast as she could run as soon as she was in the scrub trees on the other side of her home hill.

She had cleared halfway to the trading point when she sensed that 'Alpha maleness,' coming her way. She skidded to a stop in a thick pile of last years leaves. He dropped from the trees and searched the area for predators that would be worth her fear. She fought hard to calm her mind then just let the recent memory of the conversation with Thomas surface in her mind.

_We will hide ourselves away. You may come too if it displeases you to be in their company._

"I don't like them no, and if any of them are psychic I am an open book as I am sure you have noticed."

_It has come to my attention. One who normally has no secrets has no need of defenses to hide them behind._

Jessica was not a very secretive or private person at all. Normally everyone who came to know her came to know her completely within hours of having met her. The telepathy by which the Xenomorphs communicated simply shortened the process to about an hour total.

She joined the Xenomorphs in their hive. The walls of hardened secretions and the scents were somewhat strange, but she felt no threatening nature from the Xeno population or her companion. They walked down and around the twisty ways, their route finally led to the Queen's chamber.

Awe was the only feeling for a minute. Very little could equal the Xenomorph Queen in size and not a thing on earth could be as destructive when angered. She was pretty angry was the Alpha male's queen, yet her loud voice was polite in Jessica's head as she greeted her.

"Thank you great mother for letting me stay for a visit while enemies lurk on the threshold."

_**You are certainly welcome trader child.**_

Jessica sat between the forelimbs of The Alpha male and quietly conversed on the topic of food preservation for an hour. The Queen and her chief protector and strategist were very interested in canning processes. They knew about glass and metal, having been brought to this planet inside a variety of 'jar' a few generations prior to the present one.

"Would you like to put up some food for winter like that? I can get the jars to get started for you. Gathering fruit, edible plants and vegetables would be on you guys though. That and I would need a helper for carrying if I went to town for the jars. I count on my own for food most winters so I need to be careful of my own stock of jars and lids."

_I would be able to arrange a room of 'shelves' to store them in My Queen._

_**You will be going with her as well as that other one and the precious one. That should be enough help to carry back both what she needs for her own winter food storage and our hive's items.**_

One Xeno appeared from a side tunnel that Jessica had not yet encountered. It wasn't a member of the earlier trading group, and she had not seen this one in the tunnels on their way to the Queen's chamber. This was no Beta though or lesser being. In point of fact she would say that the Queen favored this one just a touch more, though she trusted the first Alpha Male Jessica had met with getting things done more then she did her favorite male.

Jessica threw that idea and her amusement at it behind the wall where she kept her more disturbing memories of bad things that had happened to her. She had learned to keep those more contained then the other things in her wide open brain, more for the safety of those who could read them then any reason to hide them away. This might offend so she put it back there to keep it out of the public mind they had running around here.

Having not caught her thoughts the new male only saw a small female person respected by his queen and thus thought a little preening and strutting was in order. He was impressive. She would still trust the first Alpha more though, and her respect for the Queen's wisdom grew a bit more.

The Alpha Dog as she had been thinking of him and the Alpha Bird she had just met, who reminded her more of a peacock then anything else, followed along with the little genderless Omega as they left the next morning. The skilled oratory that Thomas had possessed had driven off their foes for more fertile grounds.

This was the northwestern part of what had been the United States. The East coast boasted the largest of the four hives she knew about on the Planet Earth, and she had told Thomas of that hive once. She had not told him of what they had done for her but of them at any case. The stories had convinced Thomas that Trading with eyeless beings who ran around on all fours and could very well eat you was still all right.

He had given them a better target. Then as soon as they had left he had used the nearly defunct satellite phone to call to the place where Jessica and her cousin Melina had once lived. Warning given and much bigger and better prepared hive set to fight the foe, Jessica and her three companions were able to leave in safety for the nearby town.

People did do double takes. Town had about three hundred people in it and enough functional roads leading to and from it to have goods she could use like the canning jars and the lids and sealing rings. That she was walking around unafraid with Xenomorphs shocked some. News had spread of what had happened to the rapist back East though and some just nodded like it made sense.

Finally she had what she wanted for her hides and other items, including the one blanket she had made that she could spare. It had been very well received. It was going to get cold this year and everyone would be glad of extra layers no matter how badly constructed. But when Jessica had it in her mind to make something she did not make something poor quality or ill made.

She had received a bag of dried fruit of kinds that did not grow this far north and a few packs of socks as well as a ten pound bag of rice and a five pound one of flour for her blanket. It had been worth it from using so much wool yarn, and the trader she negotiated with had known it. On top of it was even a new pack of wool yarns to start yet another blanket, or perhaps a sweater.

The walk back was calm and serene, despite taking the full three days that she had thought it would require. They had gotten there with only one overnight but laden with goods they would take longer to get back. They went very slowly, mostly because Jessica was worried about Little Omega having a hard time with it's foot. It was nearly dark on the third day since they left town that they reached her house. Despite little Omega's sore foot they had made it without breaking a single one of the wicked fragile glass jars.

Alpha Bird went back to the hive right away with the news of their return. Alpha Dog and Little Omega stayed over to let Omega sleep some and rest it's foot. Omega was asleep in Jessica's guestroom, an occasional peep or hiss indicating it was already dreaming. It had taken the floor though and left the bed to be lounged on by it's superior in the Hive.

"I should oil your feet Alpha Dog. Otherwise they could get like Omega's and I don't want any cracked feet bleeding acid on my floors."

she got an impression of weariness across her mind and an approval for her to treat his feet as she had asked all at once. The oil she used on her own feet and hair and pretty much everything was made by a woman with a great deal of herbal knowledge up at the mountain retreat settlement where about another twenty people lived. It had been a rich person's spa resort prior to the mass abandonment of their planet. The lady had learned her knowledge from twelve generations of women in her family and made the best oils and creams for the skin that she could find now a days that were safe, not artificial, and there for fully sustainable.

She allowed Alpha Dog a sniff or two at the bottle before she dropped some onto his left hind foot and began rubbing it in carefully. The funny noise startled her out of her intense focus on his foot massage. It wasn't purring. The vocal cords of a Xenomorph were set up wrong to purr, but crooning? Yeah it was a crooning noise. It brought back pleasant memories that she had locked away for a long time because they were so close to all the rotten awful memories she kept locked away all the time. They came out all in a rush and Jessica was weeping by the time she had finished the front right foot and thus the last of Alpha Dog's feet.

Gentle nuzzles and ghostly mental touches brought her head up and she realized she had been crying for perhaps a whole hour.

_Why?_

"A long long time ago that wasn't really all that long ago I was a little girl who's parents had died of being sick from some virus or other. I don't really know what it was mind you because I was too little to know things like that back then. When I woke up their bodies were cold and stiff and they were not going to wake up. I knew that much. I packed my things and my clothes and some of their things I wanted to keep then I lit my childhood home on fire and left there because I wanted them to have a good funeral but I was not strong enough to dig holes in the ground for their dead selves.

After a little while wandering I found I was way to close to the great Eastern hive to be able to find a lot of people like me. I found this out because Xephyr found me. Xephyr is like Alpha Bird and you in one person because he is the favorite for the Queen of the East and her most trusted person for doing things also. Back then I knew that anything that wasn't human was very likely to kill or eat me so I tried to run. However I was a stupid kid and did not drop my bag of things to get away and Xephyr took me down easily.

He took me back to the Queen. She read my whole sad story like an open book as it always has been and commanded me to stay and be of the hive.

Back then I did not worry about what was going to happen to me nor was I afraid any longer. The will of the Queen of the East was that I become both Hive and Human, that I could act as go between and negotiator and know no fear of either race. It isn't so and after what occurred I hate the race of my birth with all my might. Though you might be curious further, I will not burden you with those thoughts or those painful recollections."

_You went forth and they hurt you as they are oh so fond of hurting each other. One who was raised as one of us would have no armor against such hurts. We love all who are of our hive and hate none who are not._

Jessica knew that it was true. She had walked unprepared into the world of the humans, trusting and kind by nature she had been nothing but prey for the evil men who dwelt among her former kind. Her horror at what had happened made her quake for a bit, then she managed to slowly begin stuffing the dark times back down in their bottle where they could not hurt her any more.

_It will be better eventually. You should find a mate. Humans are meant to have one mate per female..._

"Nope."

_Why?_

"That was what I didn't share. Why would I ever allow them to do willingly the thing they forced on me? That would be just plain weak and stupid besides."

_Apologies. I did not know that was the way they chose to hurt you._

"That's because I don't talk about it and rarely do I ever let myself remember that it happened. Otherwise it takes me over way to much and those freaks do not deserve the memories let alone that much control over the life I live today._"_

_Stay with me/us tonight. Though it is not your hive it is a piece of a hive, and that is better then none._

"I will probably sleep better if I do. I will go get my blanket."

Alpha dog asked her how she had slept among the others in the hive of the East. She shrugged and said that normally one of the others would twine a tail around her knees and another grip her upper arm around the meaty part to keep her from wandering in her sleep if the nightmares came.

_I will do so. Rest now displaced little sister._

And for the first time in many years Jessica did exactly that.

(A/n: 3016 words before the authors note, all from a dream. I have been having many story dreams lately. My muses need to stop eating three day old pizza before bed especially since they don't share anything but the after effects! In any case this is Chapter one of part one of the Alpha Dog Chronicles. Hope You Enjoy!)


	2. Chapter 2

Jessica woke up as dawn stretched the horizon. Her blood felt languid and her mind calm. It was the well rested feeling that she rarely felt anymore. It was the feeling of the hive surrounding her in safety and comfort of close kindred. That feeling made her sleep soundly when little else now a days could manage it.

Omega had climbed up on the bed in the night and it's tail was twinned with Alpha Dog's around her legs. The little one had also clutched her carefully around her shoulder, while Alpha Dog's long fingered hand was neatly wrapped around the meaty part of her upper arm. She was not scared or nervous like she normally was upon awaking. It felt so strange yet so great to be without fear and a lingering bad taste in her mouth from dreamed of memories of darkness that held nothing but pain.

She opened herself carefully. She had so few mental defenses, but the ones the hive had helped her build that were meant to keep napping ones from being awakened by wakeful ones who decided to get up early did exist. They had gone up around her mind like they had not lain so long without use. The touch of her alert mind wakened Alpha Dog first and he nudged awake little Omega.

_Up now!_

The little one was so cheerful first thing. It reminded her of Tune, who was of the Hive of the East. It was very similar to Omega. It also had no gender whatsoever and a cheerful nature. Tune was one whom Jessica had missed with a deep despairing after she left the hive. Tune had been her hunting and gathering companion and the person upon whom she tried anything she found that might be edible. Very few things had disgusted it and the Hive's diet had increased exponentially because of their efforts together.

She carefully washed both Xenomorphs, and then coated their hides and especially their feet with her herbal oil. After her own bath and coating of her hair, knees and elbows, She joined them in eating breakfast. They ate their chicken eggs raw, and had three apiece along with their bread and apple. She cooked her eggs over easy, and toasted her bread to eat with butter. Like she had learned when with the Eastern Hive, she ate all of her apple but the seeds and stem, just as the two Xenomorphs did.

The work for the hive's foodstuff gathering had begun this morning at dawn. She knew of an old apple orchard that had not died out despite being untended for a century or more. The trees were big and knotted in their trunks. The apples were good though and crisp this time of the year. So many were gathered up that she had bushel baskets full stacked to the ceiling of her shed and her little living room.

A couple of those baskets were hers to preserve and make applesauce and such for her own pantry. The Queen did have the concept of payment for services rendered down pat. She was also very kind, and would not risk Jessica's survival through the winter months to get more food for her own hive. Well not unless there was no other way.

Other vegetation and growing things randomly appeared in her sitting room to be analyzed to see if it was something you could put in a jar. She informed the Queen that she could even can fish when they were caught, so the hive started capturing fish. The traps they made were ingenious and worked very well. Soon they had plenty of fish on their shelves as well as fruits and vegetables.

A month had passed since she delivered the last of the jars to the Hive. Her neighbors came to visit frequently until the cold had snapped and snapped hard the previous week. It had gone from forties at night and fifties and sixties during the day depending on if there was rain, to twenties or teens at night if it wasn't busy snowing and rarely getting up above freezing during the day. She was missing her new friend Omega and wondering what to do about not being able to reach him or Alpha Dog from here.

The animals were coming out not at all today despite the clear weather. That meant the winds were going to shift and it was going to freeze deep and hard tonight with the clear sky above everything. It stayed so much warmer here when it stayed cloudy. Despite that fact she heard the skritching noise of a Xenomorph claw on her door frame, which was their way of knocking and asking for entry into her chambers.

"Come in friend!"

_Cold cold cold cold cold. Please can I wear a fuzzy thing?_

"You mean please can I use a blanket. Yes Omega you can use a blanket. I will get you one from the kettle next to the hot water heater._"_

The heavy metal kettle she left with three blankets in it all winter long. Brushing up against the big unit that heated her water made the kettle like an oven the whole day. That meant that the blanket was warm as if it had come out of an electric clothes dryer like they had back East when she was little. She took this blanket and wrapped Omega up in its folds on the guest bed.

It was still shaking after half an hour so she climbed in with it and made it drink hot soup. Xenomorphs do not learn table manners as a matter of course being mostly predatory beings, but Omega logically concluded she would not want any drips on her bedding or the borrowed blanket. Once it had, carefully for it, consumed the hot soup it started to feel warm again.

She had been feeling hive touches from it since it entered the door. Jessica loved the hive mind caresses it shared with her. The touches of fondness from it felt like family giving you hugs only in your mind instead of around your torso. The distant memory of having people who hugged you tightly every single day and night made a sad sound come out of her mouth.

_Sad? Why sad? Not happy to be with/near/close to me?_

"That's not it love. I just wish my mother and father had not died of that sickness back in those days. I miss them holding me and hugging me tight every single day."

_Hug? What is...? Ah!_

Omega managed to hug her. The shoulder structure of a being meant to mostly run on four feet made it difficult. It still managed anyways. The wind began to howl again and she reached out through Omega's much tighter connection to his Hive and Queen and gained the permission. Omega was going to stay for the day and night since it was unsafe to travel the cold outdoors. The queen was a good mother and did not want her favorite joyful youngling to lose toes or fingers in the cold. Jessica was very confused as to why the Queen was giggling, but that too was familiar. The Queen of the East always saw things five fold ahead of the others perceptions. When things became clearer to her that others could not see she would often laugh but never tell.

Alpha Dog came also to stay in her household often, when she asked him if he could really be spared from his normal tasks the mental amusement had been loud enough to make her laugh in response without knowing the joke.

_My Great Queen only wants me for what you call 'sex' during the wintertime when she has shed her laying apparatus. She is still enamored of Alpha 'Bird Brain' right now so does not want to be reminded she once had to settle for me and me alone._

"Basically she told you not to come back till Spring?"

_That seemed to be her wish at the time yes. Her moods can shift with alarming speed and the slightest things can make a good mood of hers go sour without much warning. Only the little bit of joy seems immune to this and I know not why she sent it here as well._

"I got the impression it was a prediction path of some sort. The Queen of the East would do that all the time. She would laugh at us and tell us that our futures showed many things but certain elements were fixed. Its not like its a psychic power to really see the whole future though. It's just an ability to use very advanced logic. What ever your Queen saw she thought was funny and it had to do with you, me, and Omega."

_My Queen does indeed perceive when others do not. It is the way of Queens. Once I had another Queen far to the South who sent me here for this queen as a gift. My Mother the South Hive's Queen did the very same thing._

"Queens are Queens I'd guess, and if we were better off knowing these future funnies they would surely tell us."

_Perhaps._

Alpha Dog and Omega were in the house all the time now. Their connection to the hive and its wonderful feeling of closeness made for deep and dreamless sleep on her part and Jessica reveled in having a well rested body and mind. She ran through the woods, the snowfall not deep or troublesome once you were past the treeline, and gathered wood and other useful burnables to add to her pile. It was already huge because of Alpha Dog's ability to drag huge dead falls to her door, but more was good. The predictions in the elder bones and in computer systems were for a brutal winter. It was best to listen to them and be ready for worse then you probably would get, or so Jessica thought.

The week ended with a blizzard the likes of which Jessica had not seen in a handful of years. Alpha Dog and Omega were inside and she intended to stay there until such a time as it was safe to dig out of her house. The wind came from all directions or at least seemed that way to her. It was going to even block up her exit in the back that was normally protected by her home's being embedded in the hillside.

Only MacGillecuttie knew about her back door and it's location for certain. When the pounding came at her portal she thought it was him, stuck outside for some reason unknown to her, and thus asking for shelter from the storm. What Jessica found when she opened the door, was not her neighbor, but instead a towering yautja hunter.

The woman and the hunter stared at one another then Jessica stepped aside.

"You try to hurt my other guests and I will kill you. I hope I am clear on that."

"Very Ooman."

Dinner table conversation was out of the question. She sat a plate of stew in front of the hunter along with a roll then carried her plate and the ones for Alpha Dog and Omega over to sit on the rug by her fireplace. They had been nesting there among a pile of blankets and pillows and cushions for the last week in any case. Because it was simply to cold in the other rooms, Jessica normally shut them tight for the winter anyway.

The hunter's bed roll was fairly dry. He took a spot far to the left of them and did not speak one word as he sat out on the unrolled bedding. He seemed to be meditating from what Jessica knew of the practice. Now was a good time for prayers, once she thought about it. She prayed silently to the spirits of her family, to god, and to the spirit of Inky Shadows, the first Queen of the Xenomorphs. Then, feeling weary, she settled in between Alpha Dog and Omega and fell asleep.

She woke feeling cranky and generally disturbed. The scent of blood was in the nostrils of the two Xenomorphs and they asked her about it. So that was why! Disgusted but prepared for it in any case, Jessica bathed thoroughly, then with proper measures taken sat back down to eat her breakfast. The Blizzard was going to last for a good six days before it would be safe to get out of the house again. She informed the hunter of this and received only a grunt in reply.

_It is how they are. They do not require complexity in conversation. That was all the acknowledgment another hunter would receive, and all that his peers would even think to require._

"If you are sure."

_Yes._

When the third day came her newest guest finally spoke to her. The nature of his inquiry was not surprising. It was what anyone who did not know about her past and current circumstances would ask.

"Why do you associate freely with the hard meats Ooman?"

"I lived in the great hive of the East from the time I lost both my parents when I was seven until about four years back when I came here to the North West. As long as you know what to expect and how to behave they are actually easier to get along with then my fellow humans."

"You speak to them and they answer back. I had not known this was possible let alone common."

"It's probably not common. You have to be able to either let down your mental barriers or be like me and have practically no barriers to begin with to receive their mental speech. It's much lower frequency then the telepathic voices of humans or your people, or so the Queen of the East says anyways."

"Their Queen would know such things I suppose Ooman."

"One has to suppose it is so hunter."

Their discussions got more involved as the days passed. They discussed science, mostly biology and a few assumptions about the Xenomorphs that she could say were really not true by having lived in their hive for so long. The hunter, who turned out was more concerned with sciences then even the hunting his people did, even taught her to make a variety of spiced bread favored by the hunters of his clan.

The clan of the star was looking for their missing member. Snow did not impede them once the wind stopped using it to obscure vision and cause a person to freeze to death. They also had the gear needed to survive out doors in a blizzard of any strength. The guest in her house had not had such gear because he had not respected the weather. Jessica chastised him gently before waving farewell from the door. He had bowed his head and made a chittering purring noise at her that she guessed meant he liked her more now then he had before. Then he and his brethren cloaked themselves and left the area.

"Even I get the impression that we will see Long Knives again some day in our future and that is nothing but a certainty."

_I agree. That much is obvious. They purr at the females they think pretty and desirable in that very same way after all!_

"ALPHA! For shame Alpha!"

_Hahaha! You have to catch me first, to make good on the threat your posture conveys!_

"What makes you think I can't?"

Jessica scampered across the snowy landscape after Alpha Dog laughing in between dire threats that she only half of half meant. She finally dropped to all fours and began scampering along like her before-hive mates often did. Due to practice of doing this she could increase her speed over thirty percent by going on all fours versus her running on two feet. Jessica shot off the top of a snowbank and tackled Alpha Dog.

"EAT SNOW!"

The momentum of her fall allowed her to grab hold of a shoulder and fling Alpha Dog with all her weight and the strength of her arms into another snow bank hard enough to make a good sized hole in the bank. He came out of the hole, shook off, and gave a playful growl. In an instant he had pounced her and thrown them both into yet another bank. Back and forth they mock battled with all the seriousness of a couple of human toddlers. Jessica was laughing so hard she could hardly breathe and the last tussle had stunned her a bit.

Panting next to her, Alpha Dog lifted his head and a mental sigh came across her thoughts.

_Fun._

"Yeah, so why are you sad about it?"

_For the same reason all fun things bring me so little joy. They are over way too soon._

"Only because the gods made the universe that way so we would rest before trying to have fun again."

_My opportunities to enjoy life are few and far between...Jessica...I am thinking that soon as the weather turns the Queen will call us back. I will miss you then._

"That will be months from now. Winter will be long this year. Who knows what will come before then."

_Wisdom is normally not something you think on or share with others._

"I can think once I stop doing long enough to take the time. Others may think I am completely vacant, but I would not have lived the four years since I left the hive and survived on my own had I been that very foolish and childish."

_Truth that._

Jessica followed Alpha Dog back the way they had come, wondering still how she gave off such an impression of being stupid or foolish. She could not figure it out but she supposed that those who underestimated her would be less of a threat then those who didn't.

Omega scampered out to them and they were all playing cheerfully in the snow when a sudden pain in her shoulder made Jessica drop to a crouch in the snow drifts. Both Xenomorphs shrieked aloud and turned towards the threat but not in time. Darts sank into their shoulders and they too dropped down to avoid any further ordinance.

"Guys I'm sorry this is...my...fault"

Then Jessica fell and the world went black.

{A/N: 3090 before the note and a small adjustment to make it make a bit more sense. Here is the second chapter of part one of the Alpha Dog Chronicles. Enjoy and review my sweeties, even if it is just to say "Yay!" or "Still reading this one." Let me know you are here and are in!}


	3. Chapter 3

{Author's speech notes. Queens speak in Bolded and Italicized text this way _**I am your Queen. **_Drones and Praetorians speak in italics: _I obey my Queen. _Speaking aloud is in quotes, mental speech of queens and Praetorians is normal for the type but without quotes, Radio or speaker transmissions have quotes but also havea colon on each side ":Radio speech:" Mental Speech of humans is in reversed }Like this{ There are your notes ^_^ Enjoy!}

Jessica felt fuzzy and cold at the same time. A gentle hand stroked her cheek and words she could barely hear, though the person was speaking just over her head, stayed just outside her range of hearing. They echoed and Jessica tried to focus and the familiar voices became more clear. One was obviously the mind voice of a strong Xenomorph Queen.

_**She is going to face great trials. But this child of yours, now of my kindred also, is not one who will fail nor will she fall so very easily as all that.**_

"She is so young. I was twenty five before I had her at least. She's only twenty, and just barely."

"Jessica will be fine love. Her strength isn't all inside her own self anymore. That isn't the nature of what she has started to become. The ties she formed with others will salvage her life and make something of it yet. You just wait and see if I am not right."

Jessica fought to open her eyes, but the lids felt like lead weights were holding them down.

_**Child this is not the time for you to awaken just yet. It would hurt more if you do awaken then if you stay asleep just a bit longer.**_

"Okay then Majesty."

Jessica felt so cold and her very bones ached. It felt as if the grip on her self that those three had been holding was finally, slowly, letting go.

_**The pain will still be bad but you must tolerate it. You are not alone anymore but the debt flows both ways my smallest daughter.**_

"Yes Ma'am, Majesty."

The gentle human hands that had been holding her along with the talons of the greater Queen released at last, and Jessica opened her eyes to agony and bitter cold that seemed to be in her blood and bones, not in the air itself.

The smallest things had to be brought back up to working order first. Jessica remembered that from when she was recovering from her abduction and the subsequent abuse. Her hands clenched then flexed out to the farthest she could extend her fingers. The joints popped just like they always did. They had been severely damaged as punishment by her attackers when she did not obey their every whim. They were more prone to aching and crackling pops when she stretched out her fingers then anyone else her age's finger joints would be. That had not changed.

Her toes were not damaged, though she had broken her feet once long ago, they had healed correctly. Now her toes popped just a slight bit and her feet flexed slowly. Her calves ached from the enforced stillness. She had to have been laying out flat for more then eight hours.

The charlie horses in her legs indicated it might well be several _days_ of laying in the same position. Whomever had stolen her had not cared in the least for her well being. Unconscious people or the ones who were awake but could not move had to be moved manually by someone else so they did not get these aches nor any rotting bed sores.

Finally it was time to try it. Her legs and arms worked and wiggled like they should and nothing hurt like a broken rib or fractured hip or shoulder, all things she had suffered from in the past. Slowly she lifted an arm straight up and made sure her eyes were not deceiving her. Nothing obstructed the space overhead. She could sit up if she wanted. A niggling sense of instinctual level wisdom warned that she wasn't going to like what she found when she did sit up, but she knew she had to. The Queen had said 'the debt flows both ways.' That meant one thing in her mind. The Xenomorphs who had been taken with her, Alpha Dog and little Omega needed her. Someone else too but she would follow that sense once she found her missing companions.

She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the metallic table that she had been lain out on. Her hands felt strange and everything in her that wasn't bones throbbed badly. Muscles and skin and eyes and her mouth and her throat and her tongue even hurt. Why would her tongue hurt? Regardless of that Jessica pressed forward. They could be hurt and need her help if she didn't find them they could die!

She reached with her open mind and touched something much like her missing ones but not them.

_Who? Queen? QUEEN!_

Jessica Shut the link for a moment, and tried to focus on raising what little barriers she knew how to raise. Then she gently reached out again.

_Queen?_

**_Yes I guess so. Since the other Queen said I was her family now too._**

_What other Queen?_

The other presence was not asking what other queen like she would have thought. The impression was more a request for a description. She shared the fuzzy memories of the conversation and the recollection of the overwhelming feeling of age and wisdom that permeated that mental presence.

_Inky Shadows. First Queen of all Queens. Not really here. In realm where the self goes after death to await rebirth._

**_So the others were my parents then. I thought it might be them, the voices were so familiar._**

_If parents are dead then yes might have been parents. Queen not always Queen?_

**_No not always Queen. Used to be much less then Queen, barely Drone. Human even._**

_Strange things, but Queen is Queen no matter what Queen started out as._

Jessica had walked three slow laps around the holding cell sized room before someone finally noticed she was up and moving around. Several persons congregated behind the high windows up near the ceiling to look down at her. She looked up at them and waited. The buzz of unimportant things, the things that still needed noticing if only to be filed away as unimportant things for now, told her that she was naked. None of them cared a bit about that. They had dehumanized her long before they turned her into a hybrid of three species. She could feel inside herself a tie to the Xenomorphs and to her almost lost humanity and to a third kind as well. What had they put inside her?

Finally a reflective panel became clear as her vision continued to sharpen. Her face was more then strange, it was horrific! The answer though, the answer to what else they had put inside her cellular code was there in her appearance. Her jaws ached and she had three sets of them to feel the discomfort in if you counted the extra inner mouth of a Xenomorph behind her lips, and the outer mandibles of a Yautja that surrounded her somewhat ordinary mouth She flexed and wiggled all these parts and found that she still had a tongue inside the wider then normal inner mouth of a Xenomorph.

Her once semi-sharp canine teeth were now wicked as daggers., the tongue was longer and more prehensile then a monkey tail. She flicked it around a few times and let herself laugh hysterically for a moment. That was her last indulgence, and the time when Jessica worried only about herself and what would happen to her was at an end. It was time to step up and show that she still had courage and dignity. They could not take those things from her and she would not let them take those things from Omega and Alpha Dog.

_**Who do you have? Who did you take the genetics from to give me these mandibles that adorn my new face?**_

The humans up above her startled, not used to mental speech of any kind.

":We were able to secure several samples. Only one was used however the others are still being held in reserve.:"

_ **I want to see them. These Yautja you took the seeds of my new nature from. I want to meet my new father. Don't try to deny that it is a male either, since there is no way you would survive for longer then five seconds against even a juvenile female of their kind.**_

_** ":**_We are as of yet uncertain as to your mental state madam. I can't authorize your release until we are sure you are calm enough to be allowed to enter the general public of the station._**:"**_

_** You can and you most certainly WILL!**_

That voice that came from all the way down in the depths of her person was the kind of voice every member in every hive across the universe prayed never to hear. It was the voice of a very angry Queen.

":Madam please calm yourself. Your agitation is upsetting the Xenomorph specimens and we need them to be calm so we don't have to use the liquid nitrogen on them.:"

_**You do that and I will eat your heart in front of your face fool! This cage you put me in can not keep me against my will because you are a moron and I will show you this before you die!**_

Jessica's whole mind shifted. The nurturing self that those who knew her would recognize went into a coma, and the savage who had fought her way out of human captivity and ripped the entrails from the bodies of her foes stepped forward. The DNA inside her cells was three times ans furious as an ordinary human's. She could feel her cellular level rage burning hotter and hotter with each moment. Everything in her was crying out to kill and defeat every enemy until none were left to threaten what was hers.

A way showed itself. Not all of the men hired by the Scientists to provide them with extra muscle were guarded in their thoughts. Truthfully all of them had weaker barriers then she had once had in some respects. They could not hear Jessica normally, if she spoke in everyday conversational tones, but they would be hearing her today!

_**Let me out! LET ME OUT NOW!**_

}Coming! Coming! Hang on!{

The door opened and a dark skinned man with long hair pulled back from his face and wearing a uniform of some kind stepped aside to let her out.

_"__**Take me to my child who is closest please. I can hear him but all I can tell is he is that way.**__"_

"Yes Ma'am. Right this way please Ma'am."

She followed the soldier type up the hallway from her cell and into the third door down after her own.

"I don't have the door codes for the Xenomorph chambers Ma'am. I was lucky to have yours. That's only because I saw Dr. Charles use it once or twice."

"_**That will not be a problem my soldier. Watch and learn."**_

Jessica knew she had to keep anyone she took and commanded like this. It was the way weaker Queens were defeated by stronger ones in inter hive combat on contested planets. Though most held peace when resources and space were plentiful, in harder environments Queens and their hives disputed and if you dominated the other Queen's drones and hive members you won. She had won because the Scientists were not Queens and did not have a regular Queen among their specimens.

Jessica felt her tail flick out and nudge the newest member of her hive behind her just in time. They might not be able to stop her from overriding the door locks but they had maintained control over the liquid nitrogen sprayers. The mist of it that hit her face burned like fire as it froze and it hurt like nothing else she had ever known. She shrieked as any Queen would shriek before allowing her next hive member out of his tiny prison. They had used up the supply of nitrogen in his cell, however her logical mind told her she would have to go through this each time to release the members of her new hive.

_No it will be my task Queen. You tell me what to do and I will accomplish the release of our hive mates._

_**Go ahead of us then. This one knows which doors hide our brethren behind them. He too is hive as are any I decide to keep for the moment. No harm shall come to him from us. The Yautja here are under treaty of peace. They will be spared lest they have lost their minds. If that happens and they attack you go for the kill without hesitation. Captivity will have suited them less well then it did us even.**_

_Yes Queen._

Three more drones she did not know and one Praetorian of very large stature with a crest of spikes from his upper lip to the blade of his tail were on this hallway. They would need to take the elevators to get to the next floor of the facility. The ventilation shafts were to small to go through. Then a thought occurred to her and she smiled.

The circle of metal flooring fell through and they reached the next floor. They had been left at the top of the specimen cells as the least dangerous. Four more floors of cells remained then they could begin hunting their former captors. Jessica's belly ached with emptiness and she complained subliminally to the soldiers at her side.

There were three of them now, the fourth one having been fed to her new hive members. Johnathon Black Cloud, Michael 'Whiskers' Willison, and David Horton had survived their peer Mitchell Danvers's death. Johnathon handed her some kind of ration bar, and she crooned at him. Whiskers was still looking at her slightly funny out of the corners of his eyes as she gave codes to the older drone and he opened the cell doors.

"_**What is it Whiskers?"**_

"Um lady how come Danvers was the only one you fed to your buddies? Not that I mind of course, just kinda curious what the rules for this new outfit might be so I make sure not to break them."

"_**If you don't want a fate like his you only mate with willing partners. If you don't want other punishments to fall on your head then you obey my will absolutely in all things as long as I wish to keep you at my side. Beyond those two things the rules as yet are undefined. Until they brought me here I was as human as you are. I still don't quite have everything figured out as yet."**_

"They made you into this thing?"

"_**They made me into a Queen my dear Whiskers. Their...FATAL mistake."**_

Ten more soldiers and fifteen more Xenomorphs were on their current floor. Along with them were three scientists, one of whom Horton greeted most familiarly. Once he had slid his companion behind his back he turned to her with a grim look on his features.

"Tell me we can keep Dr. Lexington my Queen! Please? "

"_**He has always only ever done what he was commanded to do. This makes a good hive member. You may both stay for now. Though I would rather you not mate in front of me. Other conditions will of course arise as we progress.**__"_

The announcement of Horton's orientation and partner did not seem to surprise his fellows or the other two scientists. They followed along quietly with no intent to cause trouble for now, but once they were on a planet they intended to try and run.

"_**I already know you do not wish to be a member of my hive permanently Dr. Keller, Dr. Shintai. Neither of you shall be forced to do so. Obey now and be sent forth free men again later. Betray before your release from your obligation and I will cut you down, whether it makes orphans of your children or not."**_

Both men went white at the mention of their children. She shook her head and mentally reminded them that their recent subject had been someone's child once as well.

"You don't want to be this way do you?"

"_**No Whiskers I sure do not. I would rather be left in peace but these days that happens very seldom if at all and only when you prove you are wicked evil and bad ass enough to eat your enemy's hearts in front of their terrified faces. I for one have no problem with the added nutrition!"**_

"Well I for one am gonna like being in this here outfit!"

Jessica's progress towards the two she sought most was not impeded any more with the good Dr. Lexington on her team. The others tried to give him a hard time for giving up all the override codes promptly. He just laughed and did as he was asked and what was required of him in between times spent cuddling up to Horton.

Thirty seven drones all told and five Praetorians were released from the cells before they reached the two doors that held her back from Alpha Dog and Omega. Alpha dog was thrashing against his cell door and screaming in her mind now that she was close enough to hear him.

"We put these two in shielded cells since it was quite obvious from ground unit observations that you could communicate with them prior to your transformation."

"_**Thank you Doctor Lexington. Now if you would enter the codes and step back please.**_"

Alpha Dog leaped out of the cell and ran into Omega's tiny little box as soon as the door was high up enough to shimmy underneath it. Jessica waited until it was up far enough that she could duck underneath the lifting metal plate.

Omega was not in a good way in the least. He lay there and she could sense from his labored breathing that one lung had collapsed. Omega's host had somehow granted him a weirder then normal configuration of internal organs including a third lung, which is the only reason he was even alive this long.

_He'll DIE! Jessica Jessica JESSICA! Do something or he will DIE!_

_jessica?_

"_**Yes I am here Omega it will be all right now don't worry I will fix this somehow...somehow I will fix this."**_

_You talk like a Queen person. Are you a Queen person now?_

"_**I am a Queen person now little one. Yes I am."**_

_Before the Queen who is my mother would not call the change in me despite the fact that she loves me very much. She said the chances were higher then half that I would die. Chances now are higher then half that I will die anyway. Are you Queen enough to call the change? I will go to Inky Shadows today otherwise._

_Jessica! Please CALL THE CHANGE! I don't want Omega to die!_

"_**I will call the change. I can see how it would be done now."**_

Jessica reached deep into her own genes and did three things with what she found there. First she took the ties to Omega's Mother that she normally would have left intact had he come to her as a gift and she severed them clean. She would apologize to the Northwestern Queen later in time if they all lived until then. The second thing she did was reach into him and find the codes that lay dormant at the base of his cells and pull them to the forefront of his tissues. Normally this would have initiated the change on its own but he was too weak, so with the power of her nature as queen and a heavy dose of pheromones to top it all off, Jessica called forth the change in Omega.

The process was horribly untidy and discomforting to watch but as she had caused this and allowed them to be out of their hive and vulnerable to being captured in the first place. So Jessica sat and watched with tears streaming down her face. They tasted odd when she licked them up with her tongue. It took half an hour to complete the change. His heart stopped beating twice, but Omega did not die of it because it shuddered and started beating again after a frightening moment or two each time. Finally it was done and the newest Praetorian of her hive lay panting on the floor of his holding cell.

It was then that she Jessica the third thing her genetic code now allowed her to do, with every single Xenomorph standing in the hallway and all those waiting for her who had agreed to be hive to her. They had been of fifteen different hives, from seven various planets counting the ones from the North hive and the two from the Northwestern hive of Earth. Now they all were of one hive, **her** hive.

The humans felt different. She took those she could but the infamous Dr. Charles could not be taken nor confirmed as hive. She wanted to hunt him instead so she struck out with her mind and stunned him, then she began stalking her way further down to the labs.

"Dr. Charles is toast isn't he?"

"_**He assaulted my person, allowed this travesty with Omega and captured a whole ship's worth of Yautja Hunter males. I should think his death being a sure thing is obvious as the mandibles on my face."**_

"Yes ma'am. You had best be careful though. He will have Vickers and Thompson and Johns with him like he always has been doing lately and they won't be mind fuckable or at least I don't think they will."

"_**No Whiskers your former peers are closed to my advantages of the mind thanks to alterations made in their genes by the Wicked Doctor. I will be able to make them submit after I defeat them but I can not reach out and smite them like I did to the Doctor just now. However his sudden collapse will bring about his relocation to the medical facility for diagnosis and treatment of his difficulties. This will make him easier to locate. Firstly though we release the Yautja prisoners.**_"

_Is Long Knives here? I thought I sensed him._

"_**Yes Talon my sweet, Long Knives and many members of his clan are present including whichever Yautja warrior unwillingly donated to my new genetic makeup."**_

Omega had accepted his renaming without much trouble. He seemed to be amused that his deadly looking claws were the reason for this renaming. Jessica was appreciating the clicking noise that they made on the synthetic flooring when a bullet whizzed past her head. The person who had shot the gun was on the floor at her feet with his head forcibly bowed and his arm twisted near to being dislocated behind his back not a moment later.

"_**Genetic enhancements or not, there is no substitute for loyalty to your training regimen Mr. Johns."**_

"Obviously, now let me...go..."

Jessica had a taloned hand cupping John's face oh so gently while she battered his mind. Physical proximity enhanced skills of the mind, physical contact enhanced it more. Now Mr. Johns was learning that, and to his detriment. He screamed but it was a useless waste of a defiant sound because his defenses crumpled and she had him an instant later.

}My Queen what is your will?{

_**Johns you will serve me until I consent to release you. For now you will tell me the last known location of your comrades whom are also altered that I may defeat them and continue to my main objective all the sooner.**_

}Yes my queen they are down three floors and in the red section with the Doctor in medical.{

_**The location also of the data regarding my experiment if you have it. I wish to know what samples were used and from what hive my own genotype was obtained. I must know because I am most sore to have to apologize to so many Queens and I must also make reparations to the mother of the lost one they killed to make the mutigenic serum.**_

}It was not your doing my Queen. If you want to make reparations to the Queen who laid that egg you should seek the Queen of the East. All those years ago while the hunters hunted in your home hive we took the remains away for study once they had taken one of your former Hive mate's head from it's shoulders.{

_**He Mr. Johns. That individual was a male, and his name was Blade Claws. He was a very strong Praetorian and the one who taught all the others their duties to the Queen. After all not all things are instinctual. Especially wisdom in dealing with a royal female.**_

Johns flipped head over backside through the air and landed sprawled out about fifteen feet down the hallway. Jessica was surprised at her own strength, but only her two chief Praetorians and the elder one with the many spikes could sense this, as she covered the thought so quickly.

_It is all right my Queen. All is strange and new to a new Queen, especially the strength that you will have grown into. I doubt that a full measure of a Queens strength is yours for your frame is too small to hold it, but you are stronger now then any human no matter what gender or weight class they belong to. That and you are also stronger then me. That is unusual indeed for a being as small as you._

_**There are many things about me that will be most unusual Spikes. You will grow accustomed to my oddities in time.**_

_So I would suppose my Queen. So I would suppose._

The Praetorian flirted with her briefly after he sensed her impression of his looks was favorable, then he ripped off the door of one of the cells to reveal its captive.

_One of the waylaid hunters my Queen._

The language used by the hunter was racy and wicked. Spikes knew the hunter tongue, and he showed her without hesitation all the things the hunter was saying. Including the multitude of physically impossible suggestions and crude insults to ancestry.

"_**Now now cousin is that any way to act around females of your family? We are here to retrieve you not to make you suffer more. Now come along and the opportunity to take some of your captor's heads will present itself shortly, well that is if you behave properly until that time.**__"_

"Whatever they made you from it was surely more tough then they are Little White Queen."

"_**I am sure it was hunter and in one case I am sure it yet is.**_"

{A/N: Yay chapter 3 down! 4491 words before Authors notes. I am employed so I will not finish up chapter four until sometime on the Monday-Wednesday docket, which is when I am off work. Hope everyone had a fun read!}


	4. Chapter 4

{2523 words before authors note. Sorry but the muse was as tired as I am and I am working seven days in a row before going on my newly scheduled days off. Love and huggles to the reviewers and here is chapter 4!}

Jessica sighed and leaned against Alpha Dog in the elevator. He was feeling a great many things including a twisted sort of delight mixed with sadness that came from having been taken into yet another hive. It was bad enough in his view that his Queen who was his Mother had not kept him as a pleasure servant that did not breed, which many queens did with their prouder Praetorian sons, but she had sent him to the furthest Hive she could sense away from her as if he had somehow shamed her.

Now he was willingly given up again. For in his mind that was what the Queen of the Northwest had intended. To give him to Jessica regardless of her former status as a not Queen. If it had not been ridiculous for her to know of this event in advance he would also have thought she was aware of what would happen to Jessica and had prepared by sending them along with her.

_**Oh Alpha it is not that way. You were not rejected by any of your Queens. They wanted what was best for you and set you in place to receive those gifts. They loved you very much. I love you very much so please don't be sad that we are a hive now...**_

_You love me?_

_**I am pretty certain that I did from the moment I first was touched by your being. I have never trusted anyone like I trust you, I have not felt safe around another since he whom is in my cells died protecting me from the Hunters who came that day.**_

The conversation had led them further into the laboratory complex of the space station they currently were making their way through. Three other scientists had submitted without a fight. They were botanists not working on the same experimental tier as the infamous Dr. Charles. She would need them and she knew it somehow, so Jessica gave them the option to refuse and then claimed them as kin of the hive when they agreed.

Spikes teased her a little bit for this, indicating that a true queen would surely not give them the chance to refuse. She glared at him for a moment then moved forward as if his little tease had never happened. Perhaps true queens did not care for the feelings of their hives but she did and she knew that human people being a part of her hive meant that the overall structure and the ways by which she ran it would have to completely change. Otherwise the humans would not feel at home and would find any and all excuses to leave the hive.

When she knew these things she shared them with her Praetorians. She shared most of her conscious stream of thought with them. This at least, or so Spikes assured her, was normal for any Queen to do with her trusted lieutenants.

Jessica was growing tired from all this wandering around and so little food. At last they had acquired all but Long Knives from the captives that were members of the clan from which he sprang. Those who followed along after were well raised and smart enough to not argue with a female of any stature. They were eager to take the heads of the ones who had captured them, but they had acknowledged that those she took into her hive today were no longer prey as they had agreed to the momentary peace accord.

_He is in severe danger my Queen!_

_**Then move faster!**_

The Praetorians and drones sprang ahead at her orders, leaving her behind with the humans and Yautja warriors. She followed after as quickly as her unsteady feet would allow her. They too had changed and she was still learning to move all over again. Her clawed limbs had strengthened greatly as well as growing longer and more obviously thickened. Where she had once had scant arm muscles and those only from heavy work on her part, she was now rather thick in the forearm, so much so that she equaled many of the human soldiery in that regard and surpassed a few of them as well.

Her legs had changed into talon tipped three toed feet with what felt like thick bones pointing ahead. Two raptor like thumb talons that would help her gut prey also grew out from her former the heel area of each foot. Her skin was whiter then it had been and her hair had gone stress white. Her knowing of herself continued to advance and she knew that her former dishwater blonde hair was not going to grow back in. She was practically albino save for the icy white washed blue of her eyes and a row of winter white scale growth as wide as her old hand across the knuckles grew up from her new jaws into her cheeks and onward in a thinner stripe into her newly receded hairline. Her ears pointed backwards and seemed fully mobile where they had not even been wiggle capable before. It was so strange even to her,but she hesitated not at all when the door came that had hidden Long Knives behind it.

She was needed now. She could feel the distress of her hive. They knew she wanted very much for Long Knives to live and yet they did not know what to do to effect this act upon an uncooperative universe. He was gravely wounded. The scientists had started the process to turn his entire body's worth of genetic code into their wicked mutagenic substance. It would dissolve him utterly while drawing up the resulting DNA soup they desired into the tubing and storing it in a large plastic jar meant for collecting it. Blade Claws had been long dead when they did what they did to his corpse. Long Knives was awake and alive for the procedure and howling at the top of his lungs. It had not yet injected the dissolving liquid into his flesh though and a slim chance remained.

"Doing that to a sentient being. I underestimated Dr. Charles severely."

"_**What you do not believe yourself capable of you do not think others capable of Dear Dr."**_

Jessica knew what the doctor was capable of. She could sense a lack of morality and a sociopath-like nature hidden beneath a very false veneer of one extremely civilized and educated. No truly civilized being would hurt another in this way unless no other choice was available to save many more then just a few individuals. This one did it just out of a childish curiosity to see what would occur when he did so. Education was no excuse either, for his fellow educated persons were just as bemused and disturbed in turns by his actions as she was.

The leap carried her across the space between them and she knew with relief that it was in time. Her new strength was so great she tore the apparatus cleanly from the mounts that held it to the room's ceiling. Then Jessica tossed it like a javelin through the observation window. She felt the fatal blow strike home. It was not Doctor Charles, but this one was also not acceptable, and found these wicked experiments to be fully entertaining and amusing. His death then was a mercy on the universe and she would not mourn it.

The others, including the wicked destroyer of kin, were on the run once more. Snarling in fury, Jessica lifted along with two others of Long Knives clan and they managed to get the heavy predator up on his feet. She had not realized how thickly massed he was. She made a purring noise in her throat and Long Knives chuckled painfully.

Long Knives knew what the small queen wanted and he was not in any mood to argue. He doubted for a minute that her ability to destroy was a s great as his own. He forgot though that, as small as she was, she was still a queen, a mother of all. The fiercest thing ever encountered by his kind was the hard meat queens. Now the small ooman whom had been hive raised had become a hive ruler. She would be out to prove herself and form a hive that would secure safety and peace for all who dwelled in it. He reversed his thinking. Oh this one would have been fabulous in her ferocity before hand, now she was going to be a wonder of the universe!

He watched as she claimed or killed or ordered killed anything that got in their way on the path to the Medical facilities where the dreaded Doctor Charles was. Very few of these she allowed to live now. Obviously many of them were of the same stripe as the slain soldier, or their leader. She looked inside them and the small queen judged them and found them wanting severely.

He settled a head and spine, minus the rest of the corpse, on his back and formed a more human looking smile by twitching his upper mandibles into the gesture. The small queen understood it and returned it in the same way though her first mouth also smiled in the way she had once expressed her pleasure. He contemplated something that perhaps he should not have ever thought of, but pushed it to the back of his thoughts in favor of killing the enemies he shared with the small white queen.

The human scientist begged most amusingly for his life, but it was a deception so he could try and use a weapon on the small queen. Jessica laughed aloud at the attempt and ripped an arm off the screaming man. The arterial spray covered her in his blood quite rapidly. Other things were then torn off and tossed over her shoulder in various directions and her queen's will did not allow the pathetic doctor to pass out even though the blood loss was quite horrific for something born so weak.

" _**In your next life don't be so foolish as to try and dominate your betters.**_ "

That was her final word and with a wrenching motion she tore his head from his shoulders. He did not think anything of it when she held out her hand he simply handed her enough twine to secure the head to her body. It would have a place of honor on her very own trophy wall where ever she managed to make her new hive.

The station was going to be destroyed. Even with the knowledge they currently held, human kind was several millennium behind the Yautja. They could not be allowed to keep any of the knowledge they had gained through this dishonor. The small queen agreed.

"_**I will take the videos though since they only show what horrors they perpetrated on me. Should any human justice system seek to pursue me over my vengeance I can prove to them that I was merciful for the most part compared to how they treated me.**_"

"Have you decided where your hive will be little white mother?"

This one was perhaps a century younger then he was but he was known for asking questions that made others think sharper and focus better. He often led hunts of new bloods because of this trait. In her own way the small queen was just another type of newly blooded one. His talents would serve her well.

"_**Cousin Axe I am certain of only one thing, that I must leave the earth for too many hives already exist on it's surface. Beyond that I will trust in Long Knives to find me a suitable planet to drop kit on and begin my new life.**_"

Her words startled him somewhat, but when he though about it he instantly knew where he was going to take her and headed to the docking bay where they had been keeping his stolen ship.

"_**How did you keep them out of your things then Long Knives?**_"

"I spoke a code word when they were dragging my nearly unconscious body from the vessel and the doors locked behind us. They did not have the ability to crack them open again without destroying the vessel and we are fortunate enough that they were disinclined to destroy it and pick the bones for the knowledge they sought."

" _**One of the few times in our lives that the laziness of others will be an unmitigated blessing. The next time they will use all manner of what they would call deadly force. I must prepare to meet it. Have you thought of a place to put me and my future broods yet?**_ "

"Yes Jessica I have."

"_**Excellent. Can we go now then? We need to frag this place and then get everyone safely back into their happy lives.**_"

"It will be as the lady wills it."

The strange response got a purr and a smile that actually almost reached the eyes of the sad little queen. This batch of enemies defeated she might well have time to dwell in a most unhealthy manner on her captivity and the horrors it had brought her. Long Knives did not wish this on her already overburdened shoulders. So it was that he instead slowly stroked the spines that had grown up in her hair from her hairline to her neck before they slowly merged into one row of spines. These flowed down her back they were like the small roots of a hunter's own rubbery hair growth before it was made to merge into the dreads they all wore it in. The only difference was the winter white coloration.

The purring started again and did not halt as long as he continued his ministrations. The musks she released were most desirable. He felt himself harden beneath his loincloth. A tart warning in the lower telepathic frequencies told him not to push to hard. The small queen had been forcibly mated before? Anger rose up in him until a stolen memory of the death of the long ago enemies at the hands of the still human Jessica made him smile. So fierce! Once she had been an equal to any and superior to many, just as an ordinary hive raised orphan. Now she would be very difficult opponent for the ones who came against her. Very difficult indeed.


End file.
